Daybreak
by ncfan
Summary: -Lin, Kohaku- "Come with me. Let's go somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anywhere you want."


**Characters**: Lin, Kohaku**  
Summary**: "Come with me. Let's go somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere we want."**  
Pairings**: None**  
Author's Note**: I heard a theory somewhere that the train is symbolic for death and all the travelers (sans Chihiro and No-Face and the baby and the bird) are all dead. This theory equated Lin's desire to travel on the train to her being suicidal. That was quite disturbing to me, and what's even more disturbing is that you don't even need to alter her personality to make it work.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Spirited Away.

* * *

"I'm leaving the bathhouse."

The words are said in the early morning air as, with great effort, Lin sweeps the huge, unwieldy broom across the smooth wood floor, sweeping all dirt and assorted scales and feathers into neat piles for one of the other workers to attend to later. Her full mouth settles into the sort of line halfway between neutrality and a scowl. "Then what are you waiting for? Go."

The jade eyes of the boy sitting in one of the many windowsills spark a bit at this comment, and he winces at the bitterness in her voice. He now known as Kohaku, once called Haku (_Lin can't believe she ever forgot his real name. He told it to her the first night they met; she remembers it now as though some fog on her memory has been released._) sits in the windowsill and stares at her, a small, slight child with the mind of an old man, a small frown growing over his pale face.

"Lin…" Kohaku's voice carries just the barest suggestion of an apology, but trails off when he hears the familiar sound, the screech of wheels against a track, the whistle off in the distance. Lin's eyes travel, suddenly abstracted, beyond him.

The shallow sea is beautiful today, the sunlight sparkling off the water like a billion little stars. And, cutting a gentle swath through the water is the train, waves going up around it.

"Lin." Kohaku's voice is sharper now, more insistent. The glint of his eyes traps her own. "You _can't_ go on the train without a set will. If you go on the train still tied to another place in any way, you'll just fade away, like the others. Become a shadow, and never recover. Is that what you want?"

She has thought about it, at times. Just fading away. Become a specter with no substance, and never have to think or hurt again.

Lin shakes the thought off abruptly and glares at him. "What do you care? You're leaving."

A look comes over Kohaku's face with the slow dignity of a turtle and the frenetic energy of a fish. It's an expression Lin has always detested, especially out of him (_Because he didn't always act this way. He didn't always smirk like that._) It is grimly smug, the knowledge of knowing something that no one else does.

"Come with me," he says simply.

High-pitched, bitter laughter crackles in the air, and Lin's mien grows darker, long fingers clenching around the broom. "Now you're just trying to torture me, Kohaku—" no sense in trying to call him "Haku" anymore, since his real name has become known "—and I've gotta admit, that's not like you. You know I can't leave the bathhouse—I'm under contract. And how are you going to leave? You're under contract too, and you need train tickets. Those things are expensive, not to mention impossible to get a hand on."

Laughs emanate from below, light-hearted, unconcerned laughs, as two of the Yuna girls come rushing up from the town, flushed with the happiness of being able to buy a few small things—thread to mend their yukatas, sweets to share—with their ridiculously meager salaries. Kohaku is distracted for a moment, before turning his attention back to Lin.

What he says next doesn't do anything to make her feel better, even if it is an interesting revelation.

"If you know your name, if you know who and what you are, then you don't need train tickets. The conductor can't stop you from getting on the train; you're free to go wherever you want." Kohaku smirks. "And I've worked out an arrangement with Yubaba."

Lin's expression grows even more intensely bitter.

_Is the feeling of abandonment, all over again?_

She winces.

_Blehh. I hate this feeling._

"Well, that's fine for you," Lin snaps, "but I fail to see how it helps me at all." She starts her obsessive sweeping again; God only know what will happen if one of the patrons spots dirt on the floor again, and _someone_ has to handle this if the others won't. "Since _I _haven't got a clue who I am, I can't go anywhere without train tickets. And even if I had those, which I don't—"

_Stupid Kamajii! He knew how badly I wanted to leave. I wouldn't begrudge Chihiro her chance, but still…_

"—I'm still under contract, and I don't even want to _think_ about what Yubaba would do to me if I tried to skip town on her! Do you think I want to end up like the susuwatari?" Lin still shudders when she remembers the day she found out, from Kamajii, exactly what the susuwatari are; the forcibly transformed spirits of those who attempted to break a contract once struck with Yubaba.

Kohaku stares long and hard at her with veiled jade eyes; they are no longer brittle eyes but they still seem glassy, things that let in the light but don't let out knowledge or anything someone else can use. "Yes, Lin, you're under contract."

Lin snorts, and swings the broom over her shoulder, starting to walk away. She's heard enough.

"A contract that becomes null and void if you no longer answer to the name that is found in the place of your signature."

Lin stops dead, tall frame standing stiffly straight like a soldier at attention, and whirls around to face him with her dark eyes open wide.

Kohaku nods, plainly satisfied at having gotten her attention. "Since Yubaba takes your signature to alter the nature of your name, and the name she gives you is what rests on the contract you have signed."

For a moment, there is hope, and then reality chooses just that moment to rain on Lin's parade. "How does that help me?" she scoffs, though the fire is out of her voice, and won't be returning any time soon. She's too shocked for that.

For the first time that day, Kohaku smiles. Not a smirk, or even the empty mockery of those things. Not a mocking smile, or a knowing one, or a derisory one. But a genuine smile, half-kind, half-full of wicked humor directed straight at Yubaba. "Because I know your name, Lin. Because I know your name."

The broom almost slips from Lin's slackened grasp, but she remembers herself at the last moment and catches it. Shock courses through her like an electrical current. _What? How?_

"Kohaku." Her eyes are as round as coins. "How do you…"

A small laugh echoes around the empty hall, and Lin is suddenly glad it's empty, or that it at least seems to be; no eavesdroppers, apparently, though nearly everyone has been avoiding Kohaku since he rediscovered himself. "Yubaba is such a meticulous bookkeeper." His voice is mocking. "Keeps lists of everything."

He wouldn't be behaving so complacently unless he was telling the truth. Lin's response is immediate. "Tell me," she demands, voice taut and urgent.

Kohaku shakes his head and a flutter of shoulder-length black hair obscures his face for a moment. "Not unless you come with me, Lin."

She jerks her head back and exclaims scornfully, "With _you_?" Accusations are rife in her voice and her smoldering eyes, old wounds being forcefully dragged back to the forefront this sunny morning.

It's clear what she demands out of him, even though it won't make things any better, and Kohaku winces again, not quite meeting her eyes when he looks up. "I'm sorry for hurting you, Lin, but I mean it." He smiles a little bit, that smile apologetic and even a little anticipatory. "Come with me. Let's go somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anywhere you want."

The lure of the train and the world beyond that Lin has wanted to escape to for so long pulls at her, whispering in her ear. But something else occurs to her now. "What about the others?" Lin asks urgently. "Did you get their names too?" Then something even more earth-shaking hits her mind. "Kohaku…" A slow smile is unfurling like a summer rose over her face. "Do you know what this means? With this information, you could bring the _entire _bathhouse to its knees. With the knowledge of their names, Yubaba would have to increase the workers' salaries, which we both know she won't do since she's so greedy, or watch as they leave in droves."

The boy shrugs as though this isn't important to him. "I've told Kamajii; he's setting his affairs in order as we speak. I tried the susuwatari but they're beyond help; they have no memory of having been anything but coal dust. As for the others…" He hesitates. "Well, Lin, I've never really like any of them that much." He shakes his head. "And maybe it's time to be selfish."

Kohaku stares at her with a jade green gaze again. "Will you come with me, Lin?" He smiles a little bit. "This is the only chance you'll ever get."

And _that_ does it. The broom crashes to the floor, and Lin's really smiling for the first time in what she knows to be nigh on an eternity.

"Let's get out of here."


End file.
